No this is not an endorsement. But that Op Ed by Charlie Hales in the Zero this morning pretty much made me put down my Dave’s Killer Bread slathered in this gooey almond, banana, blueberry concoction I got at that socialist revolutionary grocery store Saturday morning (don’t ask).

Did Hales really start his anti Dave Lister column Op Ed by announcing he’s one of the treasures of the city?

Like many readers, I was disappointed, if not surprised, by Dave Lister’s latest broadside attacking smart growth, transit, East Coast transplants, urban renewal, bicycles, myself and most other things that are great about Portland.

Putting that aside, however, Choo Choo Charlie, as he’s become known in the campaign because of his ardent love for street cars (and the fact he works for a street car company), listed a number of things are are great about Portland. Wonderful.

Here’s what he says about all those bio tech jobs we were promised in the South Waterfront at the end of the Kohler Coaster:

But what really made me splutter in my morning cereal was his ridiculous assertion about the South Waterfront having “no jobs at all” apart from a few retail and restaurants. First, he’s wrong on the facts. More than 2,500 people work in the South Waterfront, according to the Portland Development Commission, including doctors, nurses, teachers and, yes, proud retail and restaurant workers. … Why are you looking down your nose at restaurant and retail jobs? Maybe you just can’t accept the fact that the city took a decrepit brownfield and transformed it into a vital new urban district complete with transit, parks, families and, yes, the type of small businesses that employ the majority of Portland’s workforce.

It’s right out of the Animal House school of logic. 

Uh, Charlie, the core of Portland has lost 40,000 jobs in the last decade. How many of those “2,500” jobs are new to Portland? How many of them have transferred from the top of the hill to the bottom at SoWa?

Portland’s “leaders” promised South Waterfront would become a bio-tech hub with literally thousands of jobs coming to Oregon. They kept up the fiction in the face of actual bio tech experts who said there’s no way Portland will become another La Jolla or Boston. Hundreds of millions of our tax dollars have been put in the service of these “leaders'” crack pipe dream, and you berate Lister for dissing retail jobs? Am I missing something? Are you running for Mayor of Fantasyland? Portopia?

We have no more money for these dreams. We’re tapped out. Tell me why you want to be Mayor of Portland .

Tell me how you will keep the roads paved, potholes filled, and Occupiers off my lawn then come and talk to me about empty condos you want to sell voters  in South Waterfront.